Saturday, October 30, 2010

Halloween 1989 - Buster style!

The 1980s still seem recent to me, and the 1990s feel like yesterday, but I know some of you were still at school back then so here's a nostalgic 1989 Buster cover for you. Drawn by the brilliant Tom Paterson and coloured by John Burns (the nephew of the artist John M. Burns) it's a marvelous depiction of comic horror on a par with some of Ken Reid's more gruesome pages. I'm still amazed that Fleetway got away with a cover showing an axe and knife embedded in the heads of the monsters, but presumably everyone took it in the spirit of fun as intended. (I don't recall any fuss being made at the time.)

Inside, two of the strips were by me. Here's The Vampire Brats. Although I was always the artist on the strip it was originally written by Mark Rogers but when Mark fell ill he asked me to write it as well. I think this was one of my scripts. (Roy Davis became the scriptwriter for it later on in the strip's run.) I remember being pleased with the exaggerated expressions in panels 4 and 5.

Further on in the comic was Tom Thug's Skooldayz, written and drawn by me as always and lettered by Mike Peters. I always felt the font Mike used was too large and obtrusive, but later the strip was hand lettered by Jack Potter who gave it a much more suitable look in my opinion.

Interestingly although the Brats and Tom occupy the same "Buster universe" we treated the supernatural as fiction in the more streetwise Tom Thug stories. That said, there was a Halloween team-up between Tom and the Brats a year or two later.

Adding a bit of toilet humour as a side gag before it was the norm in children's comics I drew Tom's Dad with his legs tightly crossed in the final panel, bursting to use the loo. Incidentally, I think this was the one and only appearance of The Spottyjumper Twins. Perhaps I should bring them back in Toxic!

See you at ICE!

About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Doctor Flu', 'Celebs on a Sledge', 'Rubbish Robots', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'Felix and His Amazing Underpants', 'Pathetic Sharks' and 'Suicidal Syd' for adult comic VIZ. 'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.

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About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is a blog that looks back at classic British comics and sometimes reports on current and upcoming titles. The images of comics on my blog are ones I've scanned from my own personal collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. I do not support 'piracy' and unlike some I do not use images from dodgy illegal comic scan DVDs.

On the rare occasion when I might use an image from elsewhere I always credit the source, and I would hope that if anyone takes images from my blog for use on their own sites they will show me the same courtesy. (It's only good manners after all.) Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

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